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Peckham Spring
Peckham Spring, well not technically a spring but more a purpose built spring so that a cash strapped Derek "Del Boy" Trotter could "discover" it and make lots of money by selling bottled water. 1992 Peckham Spring Venture In the months leading up to November 1992, Del and Rodney were broke, they had not bought or sold a thing for months. Del was in lots of debt with the casino as well. It was also a recession. Del found out that he now had a huge mortgage, as he now owned his council flat, as well as Grandad's old allotment. Del, Rodney and Albert Trotter visited the allotment and found it was very overgrown and was full of toxic drums. Del saw a money making venture when he decided to have a "spring" built so that he could have the water bottled and sold. Del got Denzel and Trigger to build the spring. They dug a hole, laid rocks there and attached a hosepipe to the back to make it look like a real spring that had lain buried and undiscovered under the undergrowth and rubble that had been dumped on the allotment. Local health food guru Myles was called and was gullible enough to think it was a real spring. Crafty Del even had some Buxton water poured into a child feeding bottle to pretend it was water from the Peckham spring so that it would pass the lab tests. Soon the Peckham Spring water was being sold all over England and the Trotters were raking in the money. But the water was tap water from the tap in Del's kitchen. Del even took out a loan to buy all the packing equipment. But Denzel and Trigger had got rid of the toxic drums found on Del's allotment. They dumped them in a local reservoir. The Trotters booked a weekend away to Brighton to celebrate their money. The national news reported that the toxic drums had been found and that the whole of Peckham was without water due to contamination. Del even said that this time next week he will be in all the papers. Aftermath In the show itself, the outcome of the Peckham Spring venture was never revealed but it was revealed in Del's 2015 autobiography He Who Dares that health inspectors found out that Del was selling contaminated water to the public. Due to drinking it, Raquel went bald and Rodney got sick. Cassandra was suspended at her bank, while Myles went into hiding. Solly Atwell told Del that he could go to jail because of this. A week before the trial, Del visited his mother Joan's grave, and the case against him was miraculously dropped due to lack of evidence. In the aftermath, Raquel's hair grew back, Cassandra's suspension was lifted, Rodney made a recovery, Myles came out of hiding, Del was left broke due to paying Solly, and both Grandad's allotment and the Peckham Spring were both destroyed in a small earthquake. There were only a few tremors but enough to destroy the allotment. In Del's 2018 book You Know It Makes Sense, he says the "spring" dried up very quickly, hence why there may have been lack of evidence against Del. By the autumn of 1993, the Trotters were back to reality, living on the breadline. This was when Del started frequenting nightclubs to clinch a deal to buy some Russian VCR's (As said in Fatal Extraction). Category:Peckham, London in Only Fools And Horses fiction. Category:Peckham, London, SE15. Category:Businesses.